Finch 1: Underhiver Chapter 1
by Sqyiggle
Summary: Caught up in the daily struggle for survival in the foulness of the Delonius underhive, Finch is unwittingly dragged into something much, much worse when the Imperial Inquisition come calling...


Glossary of Delonius Slang Terms

 _Bawd_ : whore, call girl, harlot  
 _Cess City_ ; original home of Finch and Kris and the Jacknives Gang  
 _Chrono_ ; chronometer  
 _Cracked_ : insane  
 _Crystal Plains_ ; plateau in the uppermost reaches of the Delonius underhive where mineral deposits form crystalline structures.  
 _Falls_ : downhive season – a period of intense acidic rainfall once every hub rotation, also used to measure the age of an underhiver  
 _Fantic_ : Infant, child.  
 _Flimbag_ : uphiver, offworlder, stranger  
 _Flop_ : pretty boy  
 _Frak/Frag_ ; curses!  
 _Garish_ : homosexual (derogatory usage), idiot  
 _Gonads_ : b*******, testicles, oh poo  
 _Head Grass_ : Wig  
 _Hub_ ; Massive central shaft. Houses huge elevators allowing access to all levels of the hive and formerly controlled the rotation of the hive.  
 _Hubwards_ : towards the centre of the underhive  
 _Hub-wastes_ : Wasteland between Cess City and the centre of the hive, the Hub  
 _Jusalew_ ; Biggest city in Delonius underhive. Situated close to the hub on the remnants of level forty-two, a massive jutting support beam. As a result it is surrounded on three sides by a massive drop down to the levels below.  
 _Nacked_ ; exhausted  
 _Nuk_ : eunuch – a castrated man  
 _Pomp_ : Arrogance, smugness, pomposity  
 _Rimshards_ : petty criminals, small time gangers living on the Rim. Reference to the popularity of the drug "shard"  
 _Rimwards_ : outwards from the centre of the underhive  
 _Ruined_ ; drunk, high, strung out.  
 _Shard_ ; mind altering narcotic, originally a drug used by the Mechanicus adepts to commune with the machine spirits, now miss-used by the underhive denizens.  
 _Stooper_ ; storm trooper  
 _Thuck_ ; generic curse word  
 _Thuckhole_ : arsehole, incompetent  
 _Turn_ ; period of about a week in the underhive referencing the fact that the entire hive structure used to rotate about the central axis or hub.  
 _Wind Point_ ; a fissure in the side of the underhive, frequently the site of violent gales and storms.

Finch I : Underhiver

 _For Yitz. I buried you along with my heart._

Part 1: Can't Fight Muties in the Dark

The acid rain swept across Cess City, constant and deadly. It melted through the sagging plasteel balcony over the shattered window where we waited, until the structure was ready to fall. The bottom had long since dropped out and now the polluted water trickled down to pool in the street outside. A series of violent hisses made me flinch as the rain burnt through something organic.

I turned the collar of my flak jacket up, settled my smoked plexi-glass goggles on my face for what felt like the hundredth time, and scowled. Above me, the balcony groaned and creaked. A tiny voice at the back of my mind said, _'We don't have time for this; the Tide is coming.''_ I glanced at Kris, my sole companion, but her goggles, coated with a reflective polymer, rendered her expression unreadable.

The Tide. That apparently random assault on Cess City by the outlanders, the mutants and the exiles of the rain blighted Spinal Wastes. We knew why it happened; the PDF, Arbites, or some other Imperial goons who fancied firing off some live ammunition came down and went mutie-hunting. Trouble was we never knew when it was going to happen, and this time they'd caught us on the hop.

I shrugged shoulders rapidly getting stiff in the damp, cold air, gave the balcony a dubious glance and returned my concentration to the target. It was, on reflection, more than just a target. If this didn't go right, we – Kris and I, and our fledgling gang - were finished. Surviving the Tide depended not upon your ability to fight, or shoot, or run, but on your ability to be somewhere the Tide couldn't reach. For us, that was Adeptus Arbites Precinct House Forty-Three.

There were only two ways in to the Precinct House. A massive armoured shutter that led into an underground vehicle hangar, and the narrow entranceway, conveniently overlooked by a score of sentry guns, that I was currently staring at. Through fifty metres of hazy rain it was indistinct and seemed less threatening. We had recce'd the hangar entrance – it was constantly busy, and impenetrable to any weapon we'd been able to buy or steal.

This was it.

I glanced upwards at the overhanging lattice of dripping pipe work and twisted plasteel girders – the remnants of the level above Cess City – and hoped Zuff and Garth had reached their position overlooking the Precinct House. Kris's words on the subject came back to me.

'I had a look at it, couple of turns ago. It _should_ be safe.'

I believed her, too. She had uncanny judgement. I turned my head and looked at her, properly. Her white-blonde hair was pulled back tight beneath a scarlet headband. Her reflective goggles were worth, some said, more than a man's life. She was dressed in black sleeveless mesh armour, again an expensive rarity.

The rest of the gang should be in position by now. Gunner Sav was the furthest forwards, hunched high up in the old meat warehouse. His heavy bolter was vital. Dios and Stoof formed the rear guard further down the street. Their job was to give early warning of the Tide's approach.

The rain was getting heavier. The balcony gave a last warning creak, a final croak of resistance, and collapsed in soggy chunks. The supporting brackets, partially eaten through by the corrosive liquid, hammered into the rock crete wall with a crunch. The wall shuddered and soggy dust floated down onto us. Heavy footsteps in the street outside; the Arbites patrol had reached us, dead on time.

Forgive the pun.

'Emperor's teeth, this rain gets on my nerves.' The lead Arbite muttered under his breath.

'Well, ya know why,' replied the second Arbite in the column, 'it always rains during the Tide. Governor Thraxus is a dolt for allowing them to hunt this late in the season. They'll be trouble before this night is out, I'll tell you.'

'Shut up and keep going; with the vox-link out, we're vulnerable. Any more talk and your on latrine duty for five turns.' Sergeant Jax. I'd had a run in with him before and he'd keep that promise.

I looked at Kris again, fingering my autogun. My skin crawled with a combination of tension and _shard_ -comedown. She shook her head, and mouthed 'wait.' I took a deep, silent breath, and returned my attention to the Arbites.

They stomped directly past the window, hefting smooth crimson shotguns in black armoured hands. Their armour glinted in the gloomy light, impervious to and disinterested by the rain. I shifted again, stroking my fingers, warm in fingerless gloves, against the cold barrel of my autogun. Kris nudged me and held up a hand, five fingers splayed. I nodded. She began the countdown.

I lifted my autogun smoothly onto the window ledge and sighted on the rear Arbite, taking careful aim at the weak spot in the heavy carapace plate, at the base of the spine.

'Go!' Kris shouted, voice stark again the patter of rain, her left fist clenched around a trademark laspistol. I leant forward, braced bent stock against right shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. The Arbite staggered and fell onto one knee, the multiple impacts clanging against his armour. One punched through and blood spurted. He went down.

The remaining four Arbites wheeled around and split, ducking and weaving. A shotgun shell, fired at extreme range, punched through the rock crete above our heads. More dust floated down. I fired again, an ugly scissoring volley that clattered one Arbite back into a sunken doorway.

'Fire, Garth!' Kris shouted into her transmitter and Garth finally opened up with his stubber. The three Arbites disappeared in the thunderous hail of high-calibre shells and I was up and running. I vaulted clumsily through the shattered window and hit the ground staggering. I gathered my legs under me in time to see the last remaining Arbite lunge away from a wall, dripping blood, and level his shotgun at me. A searing red flash cut a scorching trail through the rain and punched through his helmet with an acrid puff of bloody smoke.

Kris's triumphant whoop was audible over the thunder of the stubber. I slipped in a puddle, bounced off a wall and found myself in the dead centre of the street. The Precinct house was a screeching blare of sirens.

If Gunner Sav was late with the ordnance, I was dead.

Floodlights snapped on across the precinct house frontage and bleached the street with light, turning every murky puddle in to a blinding mirror. Even with my goggles I struggled to see clearly as sentry guns unfolded from behind the corroded, blurred forms of gargoyles.

Automated targeting systems spattered the rough, cracked paving slabs around me with red dots, scanning expanding curves until they all came to rest upon me. I froze, hardly breathing, desperate not to trip the firing mechanism. Through the din of the sirens I imagined a quiet click as safety locks disengaged and automated loaders dropped shells into firing chambers. For once, I was glad I washed my own skivvies.

I turned my head with painful slowness, catching sight of Kris's reflective goggles, still in our hiding place. She raised a gloved hand, thumb vertically upwards.

The precinct frontage exploded in a mist of shrapnel as Sav opened up with his modified heavy bolter, hammering the armoured emplacements with explosive hellfire shells. The sirens gave up their wail, overwhelmed by the tumult of noise. Gargoyles exploded into fragments that showered down around me and the armour plates cracked and split. After thirty seconds of destruction, a loud clatter echoed across the street.

'Thuck!' I could clearly hear Sav shout. A jam. It didn't matter, the guns were destroyed.

I slung my autogun on its shoulder strap and fumbled the grapple gun off my backpack, my hands slick with cold sweat. Working rapidly, I clipped the end of the line on to the harness underneath my jacket and aimed for the buttress just above the row of smoking craters left by Sav's barrage. The grapple thunked into the rotting, rain weakened, plascrete, and I leaned back to test it. It held, and I ran for the foot of the wall.

A red dot flashed across my peripheral vision. I screamed, sprinting desperately to get beneath the firing arc. The final sentry gun, battered and chipped, retargeted and fired. The street was strobe-lit with staccato muzzle flashes. The mirror-puddles around me exploded and acid rain splashed across my face, stinging and burning. I somehow reached the base of the wall and slammed flat against it. I dared not move, even as the acid rain began to soak through the thin material of my trousers and sting my legs. After ten seconds of deafening noise, the sentry gun was finally answered; Sav fired off an awesome burst that covered me in disintegrated masonry.

Rain trickling in painful rivulets around my goggles, I gathered myself, and pushed off from the wall. My line had somehow survived the second wave of shelling, so I activated the winch built into the grapple gun and began to climb up the Precinct House frontage, fully expecting the Arbites to burst out into the street and hose me with shotgun fire.

It didn't happen. I reached the level of the shattered sentry guns and locked the winch in position so that I hung precariously above the street. I steadied myself, right hand on the stub of a smashed gargoyle, and pulled the tiny plasma cutter from my pack. Experiments had shown that the type of plasteel used by the Arbites should be soft enough to cut through. I shut down a grin; here I was, hanging outside a _Precinct House_ in the midst of an acid rain storm during _The Tide_ wondering if our hastily concocted plan would work.

I ignited the torch and began to cut. The plasteel, already weakened by the score of shells Sav had blasted it with, melted and fizzed under the intense heat. In moments, I had cut a slot wide enough for me to crawl through. I shut off the cutter, swung away from the wall, and planted a meaty kick on the panel I'd cut around. It gave, crashing noisily into the Precinct House interior. I grabbed the broken gargoyle to steady myself, and my anchor pulled neatly out of the wall above.

Rotten plascrete pattered in soggy lumps around me as I dropped with a sickening lurch, all my weight transferred painfully to my right shoulder. The plasma cutter tumbled away and exploded in the street below as I scrabbled with my left hand for hand-holds. My right shoulder began to wrench out of its socket until I managed to grab the base of a smashed sentry gun with my left, and gain some measure of stability. The falling anchor opened up a neat gash down my cheek, bounced off my shoulder and clattered into the street below, followed by the line. I kicked out with my legs until I managed to find fissures in the smooth surface I could jam the toes of my boots into. Blood began to trickle down my face.

With agonising slowness, the countdown to the Tide's predicted arrival blaring in my thoughts, I detached my right hand from the gargoyle and managed to grab the lower edge of my slot. I winched as the still-hot armour-plate scored a line of pain across the centre of my palm. Ignoring the pain, I used my left hand to detach the grapple gun and line from my harness. They fell away and I used the sudden lessening of weight to stretch upwards, getting my left hand in the slot and my right foot on the ruined gargoyle.

Muscles straining, I pulled myself up and through the slot, and collapsed into the interior of the precinct house. Pushing my goggles up, I looked around. I was on a gantry, surrounded by broken ammo-feeds and piles of dust where the walls had been punished by Sav's barrage. It was silent and gloomy, beams of pale light coming through from the street outside where the hellfire shells had penetrated the armour plate. The gantry led down into a pitch black corridor. Breathing shallow, rapid breaths, I cleared my stubgun from the holster on my right hip and shrugged my heavy flak jacket and pack off. The harness would have to stay. Summoning the painstakingly-remembered blueprints of the Precinct House to mind and with a glowstick in my left hand, I plunged into the dark.

The corridor away from the weapons gantry took me to the top of a flight of stairs. The glowglobes were out, and the corridor walls were an eerie grey in the feeble light of my glowstick. At the bottom of the stairs, I turned right, and stumbled through an empty canteen dangerous with overturned chairs and tables. Blood or sauce – I couldn't tell which in the half-light – was splattered across one wall, and broken plates littered the floor.

The canteen led me to the main arterial corridor. To the left it zigzagged from here to the street entrance, to the right it led down to the hangar. The wall opposite the canteen entrance was liberally smeared, dark stains in the faint light of my glowstick. I got up close and sniffed it. It was definitely blood. Long bursts of gunfire sounded from outside, echoing down the long stair and through the ruined canteen. I began to run.

The heavy adamantium door to the street hung on massive armoured hinges. With the power down, the three massive bolts were locked in place. I smashed the butt of my pistol through the emergency release plexiglass, and began heaving the bolts across. With sweat mingling with the blood on my face, I pulled the last one free and forced the door open with my shoulder. Cool air and acid rain blasted in. I hastily pulled my goggles back down over my eyes and looked out in time to see the fore-runners of the Tide scuttle into view.

Kris, Dios and Stoof were sprinting flat out towards me. Behind them, the skinny sub-humans of the Tide were coming into view. At this distant they were indistinct shapes with glittering eyes. Garth and Zuff dropped down from the pipework on dangling lines. Gunner Sav appeared from the left, his heavy bolter heaved over one shoulder. I leaned on the door, opening it wider, and glanced up to see Zuff entangled in his line. He hung upside down, trying desperately to free himself, and began to spin like some macabre child's toy.

The main body of the Tide burst around the corner in a solid mass and my stomach lurched. The skinny sub-humans of the frontline gave way to much larger, thick skinned creatures. Kris turned and pitched a flash flare towards them. Its actinic glare cast the street into sharp relief, and I watched aghast as a flying thing emerged from the seething horde and latched onto Zuff.

Blood spurted, showering the ground, and Zuff stopped struggling. Kris, Sav and the others sprinted past me, and Garth, having abandoned his stubber, lumbered towards me. In the aftermath of the flare, the flying thing leapt from Zuff's corpse towards Garth. I let out an involuntary cry and snapped off a shot with my stubgun. The slug picked the flying creature out of the air and Garth staggered past me, face purple with the effort. Kris and I hauled the door shut.

We slammed the bolts home and stood breathing heavily in total darkness as the surging things slammed into the door. Kris was the first to regain her voice. She pushed her goggles up, revealing icy blue eyes.

'Finch,' she said, 'what in all the wastes has happened here?'

'They're inside,' I said, still gasping. 'They got in and the Arbites…'

'Frakking…' she tailed off and ran a hand over her face. 'Where did they get in?'

I shrugged. 'The Hangar is the obvious one, but-'

'-you don't think that's it.' She cut in, eyes narrowed, 'you think they got in somewhere less obvious?'

'Yeah, they – the Arbites – look like they got disturbed by…' I shrugged again. 'We're wasting time. We need to secure the gantry, and we need to restore power. Can't fight muties in the dark.'

Kris nodded. 'Finch, take Dios and Stoof and sort the power. Take the other transmitter and fragging scream if you find _anything_. Garth, Sav and I will secure the gantry.'

Garth handed me his transmitter.

'And Finch,' Kris said, grinning, 'don't do anything stupid.'

I led the way, my glowstick replenished with a fresh power pack. The _generarium_ , a word I understood only in context, was down in the basement, between the cells and the hangar.

At the bottom of the stairwell it was pitch-black. I adjusted my glowstick to provide maximum light and moved off, Dios and Stoof following in my footsteps. A pool of blood shone faintly in the light and I stepped carefully around it. After fifty metres we reached the generarium. I was unsurprised to see that the entrance, a massive black shutter edged with yellow stripes, was partially open.

'Frak,' I muttered, 'looks like muties got to the generators. I thought they were supposed to be stupid.'

Dios just grunted. Not much of a conversationalist.

Stoof, however, screamed. I spun around, stubgun instantly raised, and shined my glowstick directly into Dios's face. Stoof had vanished.

'Dios,' I said, trying to keep my voice in check, 'where is Stoof.'

Dios was white faced. 'He was right behind me… I…'

'Get out the way,' I said, pushing him to one side and peering into the darkness. Nothing.

I sighed and raised the vox.

'Kris, this is Finch. We got a man down. Stoof has-'

Stoof burst out of the gloom, falling messily towards us. The left side of his face was torn open and hung in a flap. His eye was gone and blood splattered the floor. He screamed again, like a crippled sump rat, and began to drag himself forwards on blood-slick hands. As he emerged from the darkness, the light from my glowstick caught what was left of his legs. The left was torn into lank streamers of flesh below the knee and leaked rank fluid. He keened again, a long mournful sound, and cast a desperate glance over his left shoulder.

The perpetrator of Stoof's demise stepped into the light. Easily two metres tall, it stared down at Stoof from soft brown eyes set wide on its human face. A delicate nose and full lipped mouth gave it a disturbing, androgynous appearance. The mutant was completely naked and splashed liberally with blood. It reached lithe, talon tipped hands towards Stoof who was slithering gamely along the floor, still mewing.

'Stoof!' managed Dios, fumbling with his shotgun. I fired, a single shot punching through the soft flesh of its throat. Dios finally found his trigger and the mutant hit the floor with a thunderous crash.

I stepped forwards and shot the mutant between its eyes. It died noisily, thrashing around. Dios was on his knees beside Stoof. I crouched down next to them.

Stoof stared up at me from his one eye, bloodshot and weeping fluid. His mouth worked, drooling as he tried to form words.

'You're gonna be ok,' I said, digging a bandage from my belt pouch. Stoof gripped the front of my jacket with his right hand.

'Finch,' he whispered, so quiet I had to lean forward to hear him. 'I didnt…'  
A violent shudder wracked his ruined body, and he fell back, bloody hand still entwined in my jacket. I pried open his hand, sighed and stood up. My vox unit kicked into life.

'Finch, you broke up. Where is that power?'

'Kris,' I said, 'we lost one. I repeat, we lost one. The Tide is inside the precinct. The Tide is inside the precinct.'

I pulled out a capsule of shard and popped it into my mouth. It burst and the effect was like being kicked in the back of my eyeballs. I grinned wantonly at Dios and heaved the shutter fully open.

The generarium was a wreck. Sparks jumped from ruptured cabling on the primary generator and black fluid was pooling on the floor beneath the secondary. I took one look at Dios, his hands still shaking, and jerked my thumb to the outside.

'Stay out there. I'll handle this.'

I crouched down by the primary, and studied it, gnawing on one filthy thumbnail. It was structurally sound, but the ceramic output feeds were shattered. Not easily replaced. I fought down the urge to break something and moved to the secondary.

'Finch, you copy?'

'Yeah, go ahead, Kris'

'We've sealed the slot you cut, but the mutants outside are acting strangely. They seem to be disappearing, Could be there's a way in. We're gonna come down and back you up.'

'Yeah, received. The generators don't look good. I'll have to see what I can cobble together.'

'See you in three.'

Holding my glowstick in my teeth, I used a small tool to painstakingly remove the ceramic output feeds from the secondary. It was broken beyond repair, but with luck, I could make the first one function. That would be something.

A screech echoed down the corridor, and I heard Dios yelp under his breath. I removed the glowstick from my mouth and wiped away the accumulated dribble from my chin.

'Dios, what was that?'

'I don't know,' he called back.

'You see anything, scream.'

I stepped carefully over the first generator and began to work, the burn on my right palm stinging as sweat ran down my arms. It was hot and muggy down here; without the generator there was no power for the ventilation system.

That screech again, jarring my nerves. It sounded louder this time. I stuck the glowstick back in my mouth and began to remove the cracked ceramics from the primary, wincing as a slight discharge scorched the prints off my left hand. The second ceramic cover came off, and my hair stood up with the static charge in the air.

'Finch! You gotta get out here! They're coming!'

'Two minutes, Dios. Hold on.'

I carried on, sweat dripping from my forehead, drool dribbling down my chin. The second cover was nearly in place when Dios's shotgun boomed. I dropped the cover into place, and scrambled for the door. His shotgun boomed again and was answered by a faltering wail. I reached the corridor, stubgun out, to see Dios standing over a corpse in a ridiculous hero pose, one foot on its green scaled chest. It appeared he had just fired his shotgun into its face from point blank range. Gore splattered the corridor and half of Dios's face. He was still white-faced but smiling. The effect was disconcerting. I raised an eyebrow, still aloof on the shard's edge.

'We alright out here now?'

Dios nodded, and began reloading his shotgun.

Back in the generarium, I worked fast, disconnecting the busted generator. Now I just had to hit the switch and hope.

The vox unit burst into life, Kris's voice, stark against the sound of gunfire.

'Finch, where are those lights? They got in through the frakking sewer! You gotta get here!'

'Yeah, on way,' I shouted back. I gritted my teeth, reached out and heaved the switch, reconnecting the primary generator to the power-grid.

Glowglobes flickered into life. I smiled happily and straightened up to see Dios fly backwards through the open shutter, the ruin of his head spewing blood. He landed in front of me with a damp crunch.

'Ah, frak,' I muttered as a trio of mutants stepped through the doorway. The lead mutant was holding a length of plasteel pipe-work above his head. He saw me and roared a challenge.

In the flickering light of the glowglobes, I pulled out my knife. I couldn't risk destroying my handiwork.

'Just don't touch the generator!'

The pipe bent as the mutant slammed it into the secondary generator, denting the core-coil in the process. I slipped on the grimy floor and thrust out desperately with my knife, opening up a flap of skin over the mutant's bulging abdominals. The mutant screeched and staggered left, slamming the pipe into the wall above my head. I pushed myself off the ground and drove my knife neatly beneath its ribs. Rank blood washed over my hands and arms and the mutant collapsed gurgling to the floor taking my knife with it.

I stepped back as the remaining two mutants loomed over me, flexing massive scaled muscles, and bumped into the sparking ruin of the secondary generator. I reached desperately for the stubgun holstered at my hip, but calloused green skinned hands grabbed my arms and wrenched me forwards, off my feet.

Dragged forwards, legs flailing, I lashed out with a foot and caught the right hand mutant in the back of the knee. It barely staggered, lashing its free hand across my face. Stunned, with stars flashing in front of my eyes, the mutants dragged me out of the generarium and down the blood splattered corridor. Blood trickled down my cheek from a gash opened above my right eye.

The mutants broke into a run, wrenching my shoulders. I tried to get my feet under me, but they were moving too fast. The mutants reached the stairwell and headed down towards the locker room and cells. My ankles and feet bounced down the stairs, catching on the grip-struts nailed to the edges of the steps. I was grateful I was wearing a decent pair of boots.

Through blood smeared vision I tried to keep my bearings. The mutants headed into the locker room which was littered with semi-dressed Arbite corpses. Gunner Sav was laid out in the middle of the floor, intestines spilling out onto the cream tiles. In desperation I hooked a leg around a plasteel bench and dragged it across the floor after me. I winced despite myself as it screeched, scoring deep scratches in the ceramic tiles before collecting the oozing end of Sav's entrails.

My hands began to tingle and go numb because of the tightness of the mutants' grip. I struggled in vain as they dragged me and the bench towards a swing door set in the corner of the locker room. I guessed this was the way the mutants had got in. The lead mutant raised a hand to push the door open and his head exploded, showering me with burning brain matter. The swing door burst open and Kris pirouetted out, driving her knife up through the mouth of the second mutant before the first had even gone down. I was dropped to the floor, landing awkwardly with one leg still twisted around the bench. The mutant took a faltering step backwards, pawed ineffectually at the knife lodged in its brain stem and then tripped over the bench, cracking its skull on the locker-room floor.

Kris pulled her knife from the twitching body of the mutant, sheathed it and helped me up. I grinned gratefully at her, massaging life back into my forearms.

'Glad you could make it,' she smirked.

I scowled. 'So where are they coming from then?'

She inclined a thumb towards the floor. 'The sewers. Garth is-'

'Kris!' Garth's desperate shout rang through the ruined swing door.

I wiped away the blood obscuring my vision and followed Kris, pulling my stubgun out as I ran.

Garth was hunched in the doorway, firing constantly with Sav's heavy bolter at the shattered remains of four cubicles lined up against the far wall. Even as I flicked off the safety and levelled my stubgun at the mutants crawling constantly from the sewers, an indistinct shape blurred across the room and drove a spine of bone into Garth's right shoulder. He screamed and slumped backwards and Kris blasted the mutant clear.

I pulled a grenade from my pouch with my left hand, yanked the pin out with my teeth and tossed it into the squirming mass of mutants.

'Kris,' I shouted, 'time to go!'

I fired off a clip into the mutants as I walked crabwise to where Kris had got Garth into a sitting position. A spine of bone was still embedded in his torso and blood was pooling on the tiled floor beneath him.

I holstered my empty stubgun, grabbed him by the left arm and helped Kris haul him away from the latrines. We got halfway up the corridor before the grenade detonated. The floor shuddered and a tidal slop of filthy water washed along the corridor, pushing a crimson mess of mutant body parts towards us. By the time we reached the swing door to the locker room we were wading through knee-high filth.

We put Garth on a bench in the locker-room. He had passed out from the pain and blood loss, his head hanging limply forwards. Drool trickled from his open mouth. I checked his erratic pulse with bloodied fingers.

'That spine is likely infected. Hold him.'

Kris took a firm grasp of Garth's shoulders and I gripped the spine and heaved. The spine pulled free, tiny barbed hooks along its length tearing strands of viscera and muscle from Garth's shoulder as it came out. Garth jerked awake with a hoarse scream, his eyes wide and staring. I tossed the spine into the receding water and began to bind his shoulder while Kris talked to him in low tones. Sticky brown blood was already coagulating in the wound and he began to shiver uncontrollably.

The water was down to ankle height by the time I'd finished and yellow puss was already soaking into the bandage. I reloaded my stubgun, pushing the clip into the hollow-grip, and was painfully aware I'd just loaded my final clip. Kris was still talking to Garth who had stopped shivering but was staring into spaced with a glazed expression on his face.

'They must have a medi-room here,' she said, 'otherwise…'

I nodded. 'Yeah, but first we had better check on the hole.' She stood up.

'Garth, we won't be gone long. Shout if you need anything.' He looked up and focused on her face with difficulty.

I led the way through the swing door, now hanging limply off its hinges, and stepped carefully over the stinking mixture of faeces and dismembered body parts. The blast of the grenade combined with the blast of water had torn the latrine apart and the cubicles and most of the floor had collapsed in on itself. A mewling mutant was somehow trapped with just its torso and arms above the floor. I shot it neatly in the head and walked carefully to the lip of the hole.

The stench was even worse here and the hole was now a solid conglomerate of rubble and corpses.

'Job done,' said Kris, resting one hand on my shoulder. I wiped one forearm across my brow, careful to avoid the cut.

'That's it,' I agreed.

We returned to Garth, and hoisted him to his feet. His head lolled to one side and he dribbled a thin stream of bile into the now ankle deep water. I grabbed his head in one hand and pushed open an eyelid. His eyeball rolled back in its socket.

'Thuck!'

Kris took my meaning, and we began hauling Garth's deadweight through the slop of the locker room, his feet leaving a wake in the shallow water. Behind us, the scrape of rubble on rubble echoed off the water.

'What the sump is that?'

I twisted round, to see the water rapidly draining away. Something was coming up.

'Get him to the med-room, second door on the right,' I said, draping Garth's limp arm over her shoulder.

Kris began to splash and heave Garth out of the locker room. Sav's 'bolter still lay in the murky water, but, battered and bruised as I was, I couldn't lift it. I pulled out a grenade and my stubgun, and kicked the shattered swing door off its abused fastenings. It plopped into the mire. Beyond it, the shattered latrine looked much the same, but as I watched, a growing pool of water opened up in the centre of the hole.

I stepped right up to the edge and peered down, wiping away a fresh trickle of blood from the gash on my face. Bubble burst on the surface of the water and more of the detritus from the explosion sank out of sight. My guts clenched; something was coming.

I heard the outer locker room door clunk closed. Kris and Garth were out of the way. I was enraptured, morbidly fascinated with whatever was coming up from the sewer.

I fingered my grenade and then stuffed it back in my pouch. The pool of water was now nearly the size of the hole and whatever was coming would soon be here. The bubbles ended abruptly, replaced by ripples spiralling outward from the centre of the pool. Forgotten, the transmitter clipped to my built burst into life.

'Finch, are you coming? Garth is flipping out all over the place and I can't hold him.'

'I…' I'd automatically hit transmit, but my words died in my mouth as the first black gloved hand appeared over the edge of the hole. I stepped rapidly backwards, thumbing the safety off my stubgun.

'Finch?'

I barely heard her, staring fixedly as a second hand appeared and then a man pulled himself out of the water. Encased in a suit of black carapace armour, water sluiced off him as he levered himself over the edge. He pulled a bulky breathing apparatus off his face and back and then reached for a shotgun holstered across his back.

'Freeze!' I finally found my voice, and the man's head jerked up. His face was lined and worn. Dark circles ringed his eyes.

'We don't have time for this. My squad are down there. We have to get-'

'Shut the frak up. Who are you?'

'Lexi.' As he spoke, a second black armoured figure emerged from the pool and rolled onto the floor of the latrine. Blood was leaking from an ugly gash to his leg that had cut clean through the armour. This situation was rapidly getting out of control. The second figure's arms were adorned with stripes and a shock maul was strapped to his back.

Arbites.

I raised my pistol and aimed squarely at Lexi. The second man pulled off his breathing apparatus and glanced disparagingly at me.

'Lexi, stop flirting, that _thing_ is coming.' I swung around to cover him with my pistol.

'What thing?' I asked, momentarily ignoring the insult.

The second man, a Sergeant, glanced around the latrine and then bit down on a burst of laughter. He pointed to the dismembered corpse of a mutant lying crushed against the far wall.

'You thought _that_ was the Tide. Those pitiful things are nothing but scouts, outriders.' He stood up, totally unfazed by my wavering pistol barrel. 'The real reason for the Tide is down there. You gonna stop three metres of scything talons with that peashooter?' He laughed again and turned away. A third figure reached up for the lip of the hole, and the sergeant grabbed his wrist and pulled him out. As the third man hooked one leg over the lip, the water bucked and heaved and the man was spat into the air, blood spraying from the stump of his left leg. I could hear him screaming through his respirator.

The sergeant let out a guttural curse and pulled out a boltpistol, pumping explosive rounds into the water.

'Come here, girl!' Lexi grappled with the third man, trying to stop the bleeding. I ran towards him, unsure of what to do, and a jet of crimson arterial blood squirted into my face. Squinting through the red mist, I dropped into a crouch besides the man. Lexi was fumbling with the stump of the man's leg, trying to grab the slippery mess of flesh and clamp down on the artery. Inspired by his efforts, I reached forwards and steadied the shrieking man's torso. Behind us, the sergeant cursed and spluttered in a fury and bullets rang off something hard. I risked a look back to see a bulbous head, crowned by a long ridge of pale bone, rising from the water.

'Time to go!' shouted the sergeant, firing a last shot with blew a bloody chunk out of the bulbous shape and sprinting for the door. Lexi had finally clamped the bleeding, his thumbs disappearing out of sight into what was left of the man's thigh, and we half dragged, half carried him out of the latrine as the nightmare continued to rise out of the pool, oozing purple ichor from the numerous wounds across its armoured exo-skeleton.

In the locker room, the sergeant was looking around with dismay at the corpses of the Arbites. We dropped the third man on the bench, still stained with Garth's blood, and I became aware that the transmitter on my belt was still talking. I grabbed it, pondering how to inform Kris of the sudden change in events, when the locker room door slammed open. Kris burst in, laspistol out in front of her.

'Finch, what has happened to…' she trailed off as she came face to face with the sergeant, who had dropped to a crouch and was pointing his boltpistol at her.

She rallied magnificently.

'Who the thuck are you?' she shouted, utterly unperturbed by the pistol in her face, 'and what have you done with Finch.'

The thing in the latrine let out a bestial roar, and tile-cracking footsteps shook the floor. Lexi had finished binding the man's leg and pulled off his blood soaked gloves.

'Sir?'

The sergeant got up off the floor.

'Can't run anymore.' His eyes came to rest of Sav's heavy bolter, still abandoned on the locker room floor.

'Lexi, grab that. Finch, use Schnider's shotgun, I don't think he's gonna be much use.'

He glanced back at the corridor towards the latrine and then grinned at Kris and stuck out a hand.

'Sergeant Finlay, and I haven't laid a finger on her, Ma'm.'

I grinned, despite myself, feeling the dried blood on my face crack, and hefted my acquired shotgun.

The thing emerged into the locker-room. In the light provided by the struggling glow globes, it was horrendous. It had to crouch to fit in the doorway. Four arms tipped with gore splattered bone claws sprouted from its torso and a quivering sting hung between massively muscled legs that ended in cloven hooves. My gaze tracked upwards to the massive crimson head, with two glowing eyes and a maw of needle teeth. My left hand involuntarily edged towards my pouch of shard.

It sprang forwards with terrifying speed, Lexi's rain of bolts shredding the lockers behind it in a deafening cavalcade of metallic bangs. I loosed off a shot, but the recoil of the unfamiliar shotgun put me off and I blew a glowglobe off the ceiling. Finlay was more accurate, and blew one of its arms off in an explosion of flesh and bone. Kris's laspistol shots burst ineffectually against its armoured carapace.

Before any of us could fire again, the thing brought its claws down at Lexi and carved the heavy bolter neatly in two. The 'bolter exploded, shredding a screaming Lexi with shrapnel before the monster eviscerated him.

The beast straightened up, fresh blood and drool coating its chest. Clenching my teeth, I pumped the shotgun and fired directly into the thing's face. The shell shattered its jaw, breaking teeth and punching a clear hole through its neck. It swept forwards towards me and then abruptly turned away and lunged at Finlay. I fired again as it hurtled forward, claws outstretched. Finlay disappeared underneath it and they slid into the wall, cracking the plascrete. Finlay staggered upright, blood gushing from his mouth and then collapsed onto his face.

Nothing moved for long moments.

I stumbled backwards, collapsed against a locker and threw up over my blood soaked legs.


End file.
